Wouldn't you think the best players though (for the most part) would want to play for a chance to get into the best league in the world though? Therefore wouldn't you try to go through the AHL to get to that league since it had the circumstance of being the league you had to go through?

Remember that players in the O6 days were not the millionaires they are now. Hockey was not the only consideration for some of them. For example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greatest hockey legends.net

When Guy returned to Seattle - now renamed the Totems - he picked up right where he left off. He scored 26 goals and again led the league with 85 assists and 111 points.

The Toronto Maple Leafs came calling after that season, but they could not woo Guy out of Seattle. Guy was apprenticing as an electrician at the time, and was thinking of his long term future. He didn't want to leave the city of Seattle without some guarantees. There was a lot of bus and train travel between those cities and if he signed he wanted play in either Toronto or Seattle, and never have to make that long trip.

The NHL was clearly not offering enough to get Fielder to put aside his apprenticeship, which was imoprtant to him because hockey (even NHL hockey) did not pay enough to retire on, so he needed to have a vocation when his playing days were over.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vecens24

Sure he's not playing against an "extrmeely" high level. But it certainly as a whole is a higher level than he has ever played against in his professional life couldn't you agree?

Probably, but this comes to the "myth of the AAAA player" as Bill James calls it. There is no magical difference between the NHL and the minor leagues, there's just more good players in the NHL.

In the MLD Fielder would not be the absolutely dominant player he was in the WHL. Otherwise I'd have him on the first line. But the assumption that players who never "made it" in the O6 era should automatically be discounted as they would be today is baseless. The circumstances were very different than they are now.